Don't own the Ninja Turtles.

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Chapter 1

I read the headline without really understanding it, having suddenly lost my comprehension of the English language as my brain went on overload. The little pizza parlor around me spun; in my mind the people around me, sitting at the cluttered tables, suddenly became hypersensitive to my presence. Alien, they would whisper to one another, freak. Abomination.

Then something clicked. A picture, black and white and smudged with greasy fingerprints, drew my attention. The room spun faster, and I realized with a jolt that I was spinning too, spinning to that picture as though it had its own gravitational pull. I grappled mentally at the counters, desperately trying to hold myself here. A young woman with white-blonde hair and purple streaks slid our order to me; the paper stopped pulling so abruptly it was startling.

I slammed the money on the counter, perfect change. A couple of coins tried to make a run for it, rolling in every which direction. The girl brought her cupped hand down on two, missing the third as evidenced by the light tink-think behind the counter, barely audible over the clamor of voices.

I shoved the pizza boxes under my arm and slid out the door as quickly as I could, making a beeline for the first alleyway. Two other trench-coated figures were waiting for me at the top of the building, relaxed. One of them leaned toward me, a smile spread across the visible lower half of his face. It disappeared as he tasted the air around me, felt the tension and the anger which was wildly starting to spin out of control.

I thrust my fist forward, holding the paper so tightly my hand shook. He received it immediately, on guard. The second figure straightened, treaded agilely over, more cautious of me.

Donatello flipped his hat up so I could see his face, glanced toward Mikey, and handed him the paper. Then he turned toward me, taking a step forward. He grabbed both my arms, shaking me lightly.

"We have to find him. First thing's first."

I clenched my jaw. I wasn't shaking any more, I was beyond that. "Idiot. Foolish, why did he-"

"That doesn't matter." It was probably dangerous to interrupt me at this point, but Don had this ability where he could do something like that and get away from it. "He's bleeding. They said they have his blood. He probably just managed to get away… if they don't already have him. We need to search. I know he's stupid, I understand the gravity of the situation." There was that word gravity again. The pulling, helpless feeling. "I agree with everything you want to tell me… But we need to get him safe."

"Don." I couldn't hear my own voice, could only feel the movement of my tongue, sticky in my dry mouth. "They could already have him. They may not want the public to know that bit."

Instead of answering, he looked to Mike, who had lowered the paper. It flipped over at the top; he was glancing back and forth at us as though we were in some sort of tennis match, though we were looking at him rather than each other. Any trace of a smile had been wiped off his face, replaced by that serious grimace he wore when we were all truly in trouble.

I don't know if Don got the support he was looking for, or what that support was, because Mikey said nothing. He turned back to me, his look imploring. "Let's find him, and let's get out of the city if we need to." His eyes were doing the tennis tournament thing on my face, searching my reaction. I kept myself blank. "Now."

"Its been over twenty-four hours." That didn't even scratch the surface of what I was thinking, let alone feeling. I couldn't come to grips on anything. I was baseline frightened. Anger crept up from that fear; the burning-orange tips of the hottest part of a flame. I was afraid for my family- afraid, I suppose, that Raph could be dying or dead in a corner somewhere. But wherever he was now, everything had been ruined. Our fragile façade, the wall that hid our existence knocked down and ruined to the point where it was a wonder it ever existed.

Don knew that, he understood that. He had all but tackled me, pulled me down to the most important points, directing me, synchronizing with my thoughts and yet pushing me forward in the right direction as he had always done, ever since we were small. Mike understood this, too: the one who always had something to say, who always had a snide remark to throw out, had settled to a decided silence. And there he waited, they both waited, staring at me, ready to commence the search.

I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding. My jaw ached as I opened it. "He got himself into trouble, again." Mike raised an eye ridge, a silent display of exasperated agreement with my frustration. "… Let's go."

Where else could we go but the farm house? We had no other options, being who we are. Our other alliances were, quite fittingly, scattered among different dimensions and planets. Strange creatures run with strange crowds.

With out existence spread before the human population, I scrambled for purchase on a plane of safety for my family. Raphael lay unconscious, in tough shape, even his minor wounds infected by the dirty sewer water we had found him in. His fever ran high, Don used the word systemic often when describing his state. I could deduce what that meant, and found I couldn't bring myself to care. Splinter would attempt to pull me aside, and I'd make excuses. I couldn't stay in the house for long. Mike sometimes wandered twenty feet behind me on my walks, and I ignored him.

They looked upon me with worry, a different kind than the one they had reserved for Raphael. I trained till I quite literally dropped, attempting to make my hatred for the situation burn itself out. I knew what they were thinking. They were wondering if I had returned to the state I'd been in before I went off to Japan. They were almost right; in many ways, I back in that state of mind. I had, once again, lost my footing, slipped over the edge to an insanity driven by my love for my family and the obsessive need to protect them.

My mood only worsened when Raph finally woke up. I ached to shove inside that little room, point the finger at him, show him what he had done. Ignorant, he wouldn't be sorry for his actions, he would only bark back insults and, once healed, would repeat the process over and over again, until he killed us all. Just like he always did. Like some stubborn broken record.

However, with the possibility of the police down at our lair, fishing through the remains of our belongings, something had changed about this broken record of events. I wasn't just angry. I couldn't let it blow over. I wanted to make him sorry, to actually hurt him. But nothing hurt him. And if it did, he brushed it off easily, let his temper ride its course until he burned out.

Weeks passed, he got better. I started to hear his voice through the walls. They all tended to him but me. Don came to me one night as I sat meditating. He put his hands on my arms again, and told me it was okay what I was doing, if I stayed from Raph a while. He told me to think things through, to try to understand.

That was when I became angry, and excused him from my room. He didn't budge, and for the first time since we were children I used force to move him.

Mikey continued to follow me through the woods, tagging along almost as though he was afraid I'd leave them again. A couple of weeks after Raphael woke, I turned to face him. I was sick of being watched from afar, sick of the wide yet watchful berth they all gave me. I waited till he caught up, and asked what he expected to gain from shadowing me. He approached me slowly.

"Are you going away again?" There was no whine which so often tugged his voice, no pout when he said it. It was matter of fact, uncharacteristically blunt. I didn't know how to respond at first.

"Have I gone away so far?"

He shrugged. "Lately, we didn't know, with the way you're acting. If you were planning it. You're acting just like before."

"You don't think that's justified?" We were going to jump headlong in to this, I could see it. There would be no casual exchange.

He sucked his teeth, rolled back on his heels. "I think we all lost the same amount. And I don't get it; last time, you somehow thought everything was your fault. It wasn't yours this time. Unless you're so demented you somehow managed to find an excuse."

He was making shots at me. Through the cloud of my anger I recognized his. It took me back a few paces. All the rage I had reserved for Raphael… it was apparent he had organized his own in a different way.

"I'm not blaming myself." I let the implication hang.

His fists clenched, arms straight by his sides. His words were flat… no exclamations, just dead-stop sentences. Somehow, coming from Mike, I sensed that if he chose his words had the ability to sting the most. "Yeah, he gave us up. I know, we lost our home. All of the things we had scavenged over the years are gone with it. But that doesn't matter… it shouldn't. We found him, and we were able to get out. We still have to hide, and that's no different than before. We're together." He stepped forward. I braced myself, and he made no move to come closer. "I don't get it, Leo. I don't get why I understand this, of all people, and why you don't. You, with your little pep talks about family and connections and love, I don't understand why this matters so much. I don't get why you're acting this way. We've lost our home before."

"We have never before been exposed to the humans. They've never had our DNA. Who knows what will happen when crackpot scientists get a hold of it? They could find us. All this talk of labs," My voice was slowly raising, and he wasn't flinching like he had the last time I acted this way, "all these warnings Splinter had given, all the effort we wasted to stay hidden, that's gone. Blown, overnight."

"You think Raph doesn't realize that? You think he doesn't care?"

"I think that if he cared, he would have realized it and quit while he was ahead!"

"Leo, where is your brain? You know him better than any of us! If anyone, you're the one who keeps him in line, in the end. That has to take some sort of understanding on the way he thinks! You're not thinking straight; you let shit get ahead of you that night and you're holding it there, and you're not letting yourself snap out of it. You're being ridiculous. "

"Snap out of it? Do you think I enjoy being the only responsible one here?"

"Responsible? All you've done is run around and train and sleep. You don't help us, you don't ask about us, let alone him!"

"What would you have me ask? It's obvious you're all in pain. That's the right way to react."

"You're so obsessed with keeping us safe, but you won't come out of your own hole to talk to us? What about you? And what about Raph?"

I suddenly didn't feel like talking any more, but I couldn't turn away now. "Raphael doesn't need my advice. He never listens to it, no matter what happens. It's always been about his safety, for yours, and I might as well talk to the wall. It's the same stupid process, Mike! And now that he really has done something, I'm supposed to step up and… what? 'Lecture' him? Listen to his snide comments and walk away wiping the spit off my face?"

"It's killing him!" There it was, his true rage boiling on the surface… and his fear. For the moment, it seemed, Mike had disappeared. Throughout the fifteen or so seconds it had taken me to speak, he had shifted on his feet, waiting to spit the words at me. "He almost died, Leo! He woke up and remembered what he did, he can't stand the fact that you're not there too. He won't move, he won't eat. He doesn't talk much, just to say he's effed up, to say he failed, and that you're the only one who bothers to show it. Then he totally clams. At first he asked where you were alot, but you know what? He never asked why. Because he knows, Leo. He knows what he did."

"And is he sorry?" There was no verbal answer, but veins popped out on his temples. Strange, we all looked so alike, and strangers to the family often had to separate us by personality. Physically, we were like quadruplets. For a split second, it felt like Mike and Raph had swapped. How unnerving.

"Mike. He may realize the magnitude of what he's done for now, but he'll forget it soon. Maybe he'll leave again for good, not just for a few days. Maybe next time they'll find-"

"Stop!" I had him yelling now. "This isn't you! What the hell is wrong with you? You don't mean any of this!"

"This isn't some sort of fun game, Mikey! This is real! This is danger, this total lack of safety no matter where we try to live because we're out in the open now!"

"This would have happened eventually, Leo! What, you thought we'd just hide in the sewers for the rest of our lives down there, all happy cuz Shredder's dead and yay, we can finally go back to a normal life? What the hell is a normal life, anyway? Know what I think? I think that no matter what we do or where we go, trouble's always gonna follow. We can't escape it; part of what we are is this freaky madness of aliens and monsters and mutations! But you know what, so far that hasn't really mattered, because we all had each other. Until Raph makes a mistake- he wouldn't do that on purpose, and for the first time in twenty years the press notices us! And he's guilty- stop it a-and look at me!"

I started to shake my head halfway through the speech, clenching my teeth and making his sentences jumble. I had many comments to bark back, but followed up with the last one. "Regardless of the guilt you think he's feeling, that's not going to change anything."

"Wh- what is this? What, you're going to pick who you want to protect now? You're gonna be there for the rest of us and throw out the fourth one who fell out of your grace? Just because you won't take five seconds to come out of your shell and think about what he must be feeling?"

"No, Mikey. I'm not going to throw him out."

"You might as well, because I think he'd prefer it."

"…Throwing him out is not in my power, I just attempt to lead."

Two heartbeats later, he had me in a chokehold. Mikey. He held me against a tree, panting. The instinct to throw him sent electric shocks up my arms, but I found I couldn't retaliate. Something stung beneath the surface, stealing the oxygen from my rage. I couldn't raise a hand to Mike like I had Don.

There was something wrong with this scene, something brought on by a lot of stress and desperation, something that a small part of me understood. Inside, a little man screamed and thrashed about and scratched at the walls of my chest, ruining me from the inside out. His choked breathing matched my brother's, his tears flowed at the same rate. Somewhere between the two of them, with their bodies pressed so close, my heart stayed frozen in shock. I couldn't focus anywhere else but Mike's face. I couldn't touch him, not to toss him off me or comfort him, no matter how easy it would have been.

The angry energy drained from me and leaked in a puddle to the ground, and I was suddenly disgusted at the thought of standing in it.

"What the hell is happening?" His voice was rough, probably from a combination of things. "Where the hell did you and Raph go? You go off on vacation somewhere and didn't invite the rest of us along, you leave your bodies on some weird autopilot while you were away?"

It took me a full thirty seconds before I found my voice. It seemed like the little man had scratched it beyond functional capability. Words stumbled out, bruised and beaten and strangled by my brothers twitching hands. "I wouldn't exactly call it a vacation."

He dropped his eyes. The chokehold loosened. Without another word, he slid to the ground, kneeling at my feet, in my vile puddle of dissolved anger. The nunchuck he'd been using hit the dirt with a light thud and he brought his free hands to his face.

Minutes passed. In my mind, I floated helplessly without anything to hold on to. The little man was screaming in shame and self-doubt, he took his raw fingers to my chest wall and began to dig in an attempt to drill through and reach my brother.

My joints popped as I lowered myself slowly to his side. After a moment's hesitation, I placed a hand on his shoulder. He held himself stiff, neither accepting nor rejecting me. I sighed and rubbed his arm.

"This right here is everything I've been trying to prevent." He didn't answer me, he was too far gone. I waited a few minutes, bit the inside of my cheek till it bled. Something about this display had started that gravity up again. The memory of that black and white newspaper photo tugged at my consciousness, pulling itself in full view of my mind's eye. I was brought back to that moment of discovery, holding that newspaper, completely unwilling and yet helpless to resist.

"I'm sorry, Mikey."